Hi there! I'm hoping some of you nice people can give me a hand with my first knitting project.

I'm trying to knit a striped scarf. The problem is that every time I change colours, there's a line of the old colour on one side of the scarf. I've tried both stockinette and garter stitch and the line shows up in both. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong when I changed colours, so I looked up some videos but the line appeared there too. Is it possible to knit a flat striped scarf without that unwanted stripe of the old colour? What am I doing wrong?

I only learned how to knit and purl recently, so if I sound like a complete noob, it's because I am!

Hi, welcome to KH and to knitting. You aren't doing anything wrong, that is just the way it works. When you change the colors it will have the bumpy line you are getting show up on one side or another. It is common on scarves and one side is just the "back". Someone suggested recently that you could make both sides look the same and look like you wanted it that way by putting some of the color change bumps on both sides.

There are some harder things you can do to get around that issue but you probably don't want to do them yet. One is to make the scarf in the round so that it is a tube and all the "back" side color changes are in the middle of the tube so they don't show. Not too hard really, but slower and uses more yarn. Another is a thing called double knitting. I don't really recommend it quite yet, but with it you can make two right sides and actually knit an item with two layers, that you knit at the same time. Sheer magic.

Merigold explained it well ... the "stripe" that you are talking about just happens naturally when you change colors. Usually it's on the wrong side of the work (eg. on the inside of a sweater) so you don't see it. With a scarf, there isn't really a wrong side since you see both sides. I don't think it's really a big deal though.

In the future you may want to try one of the more advanced techniques that Merigold mentioned, but it may be a little overwhelming right when you're just getting started. I like the idea of doing your color changes on different sides so that the "stripes will alternate and be on both sides of the work ... it will look like it is supposed to be part of the pattern!

Anyways, hopefully you find the forums here helpful and good luck with your project!

Thanks so much to both of you for the advice! I'll look up how to knit in the round and see if I get anywhere with that...

You could try checking out the videos page here on KH ... there are several videos demonstrating different methods that can be used to knit in the round. It might give you a starting point in learning what circular knitting is all about and how it is done.